Top five livestock property regions revealed: Leaves one state reeling

Elders has analysed livestock property prices, and there is a shock finding for one of the nation’s biggest livestock states.

South Australia, northern NSW and western Queensland have emerged as the big performers for livestock properties, with some having growth rates of 25 per cent over the past three years.

Data analysed by Elders Real Estate, and provided by Corelogic, show small farms in South Australia have seen the greatest lift in value when comparing real estate prices for livestock properties.

Elders business intelligence analyst Richard Koch crunched the numbers and for a region to qualify it had to have more than 10 sales per quarter.

The rankings were made using a three-year compound average growth rate from 2021 to 2023.

“Year on year growth measures can be volatile and may overstate performance, particularly, if a good year follows a poor year,” Mr Koch said.

“A couple of things to note is that relative rankings bounce around through each of the three-year rankings.

“This could suggest that the relative profitability of farms in each region fluctuates with the prices paid - as prices become too high, buyers look to other regions.”

The top performers were:
- Adelaide and Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia

- northern South Australia

- Northern Tablelands, NSW

- south east South Australia

- western Queensland.

Mr Koch said it was not surprising several of the top ranked regions “could be described as lifestyle farming areas”.

“Certainly, in South Australia, Adelaide and Fleurieu Peninsula and the south-east are regions that contain large numbers of lifestyle farms, given its proximity to Adelaide,” he said.

“The remote working trend that has prevailed since 2021 may explain the lift in the value of these properties.”

Two pastoral areas - northern South Australia and western Queensland - figured in the top five ranking. For northern SA, the compound growth rate in prices over three years was 23 per cent.

There was a 14 per cent lift for 88 properties sold in western Queensland, where the average land parcel size was 15,480 hectares.

Not one Victorian region featured in the top five for growth rates from 2021-2023.

And while there have been significant price rises for livestock land over the past few years, Mr Koch said this could be tempered by current commodity prices.

“Unless we see sustained productivity growth or a resurgence in prices for livestock however, it would seem current growth rates may need to moderate,” he said.

“The desire to achieve productivity growth by increasing farm size appears to be a key factor in driving land values higher.”